Relentless Eastward Wind
by HakureiIllusion
Summary: A story following the priestess Sanae Kochiya, exploring the events that led Kanako to move the Moriya Shrine to Gensokyo.


Author's note: Well, here goes nothing. First chapter of my first attempt at a fanfic.

So this is essentially a story chronicling the events that led up to the Moriya Shrine being moved to Gensokyo, focused heavily around the shrine's priestess Sanae Kochiya. Probably won't be all that long - 6 chapters, most likely - and each chapter won't be that long either.

Oh, the prologue is in this too. But in both the prologue and first chapter, not much happens. Early stuff, mostly backstory, exposition, and introductions. But once we move past all of that, we can get to the meat of the story.

By the way, did you know the name "Sanae" means "early sapling"? Food for thought.

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue: Sanae Kochiya<strong>

"These rainclouds weren't here a minute ago… and it's been so dry lately… Kanako, is this your doing?"

"Yes. It seems the people have been so desperate for rain that they've begun praying again. It's not much, but I was able to conjure up this storm."

"Hm… I wonder if it'll keep up…"

"Don't kid yourself, Suwako. Faith in the gods has done nothing but decline for as long as I can remember."

"Still, it would be nice…"

"Optimism is all well and good, but don't delude yourself. Ten more years until the end of the millennium… I doubt we'll last that long."

"While I'm quite fond of water, I prefer when it's not falling from the sky with lightning. We should go inside."

"Yes, of course… huh?"

"Kanako, on the shrine's doorstep, is that-"

"…An infant."

"It seems human, but that hair…"

"I've never seen anyone with that color hair, but this is definitely a human girl."

"Maybe she's the descendant of a god?"

"Possible… she can't be any more than a month old…"

"Who could do this to an infant?"

"That doesn't matter right now. She can't stay out here during the storm."

"What, you're adopting her?"

"I haven't decided that yet, but we at least need to take her inside."

"Hey, we should give her a name!"

"Aren't there more pressing issues right now? And we haven't even decided if we're keeping her yet…"

"Oh, this will only take a second."

"Isn't a decision like this something that we should take our time with? It's not like we can just come up with a name on the spot."

"What, you haven't imagined what you'd name your daughter if you had one?"

"…Well, yes, but-"

"So, let's hear it! What've you got?"

"…Sanae."

"Sanae, huh… yeah, that fits."

"What, just like that?"

"Kanako, the rain's started; we don't have time for this! Get inside!"

"But this was your idea- ...bah, whatever. Alright, then, let's go inside… Sanae."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 1: An Early Autumn Night's Dream<strong>

Sanae Kochiya yawned and gazed out the classroom window. She had barely gotten any rest last night, and as a result had been exhausted all day. In fact, Sanae almost found herself unable to pry her head from her pillow and get to school on time. And now, watching the clouds float lazily across the sky, she felt her exhaustion catch up with her and let out a second yawn. Unfortunately, this one was loud enough to catch the attention of her teacher, Mr. Aoki.

"Miss Kochiya," the teacher asked, "were you paying attention?"

Though she was taken off guard, Sanae instantly regained her composure and flatly answered "Y-yes Mr. Aoki, of course."

"Well, then, you shouldn't have any trouble coming up to the board and solving this problem."

Sanae was a little irritated that Mr. Aoki had called her bluff, but it didn't matter anymore. As she walked towards the board, she examined the problem. A complex-looking math equation, solve for x. In the corner of the board she saw a formula. "_Ah_," she thought, "_that must be what he was explaining a second ago_." Sanae ran her eyes over the equation once more, and began to work out the problem in her head. After a mere three seconds, she lifted the piece of chalk and scribbled what seemed like a random series of numbers on the board. "X equals zero point two-eight-five-seven-one-four, repeating," she announced.

Clearly perplexed by how quickly Sanae came up with the answer, Mr. Aoki arched his eyebrow and repeatedly glanced back and forth between the board to Sanae. "Very impressive, Miss Kochiya. You may return to your seat."

As Sanae walked back towards her desk, a murmur of confusion swept across the rest of the class. It seems most of them were finding it difficult to understand the formula, and even more difficult to understand how Sanae had managed it so easily. "_Great_," she thought sarcastically to herself, "_more attention. Just what I needed_."

Indeed, Sanae attracted a lot of attention, something she was less than thrilled about. To everyone around her, she was a bit of an enigma, and for good reason. For starters, her blatant apathy towards her classes didn't stop her from pulling the highest grades in the school with ease. Then there was her apparent mood swings. Depending on how she felt on a particular day, one might see her skip down the hall with a beaming smile on her face, or shuffle slowly between her classes ignoring anyone that tried to talk to her. In truth, these weren't so much "mood swings" as they were "completely different mindsets". Deep down inside, Sanae was a very caring and kind person; she just simply preferred to keep to herself.

But the first thing most people notice about Sanae is her appearance. It's quite hard to overlook the fact that her hair color is an extremely bright green, like an emerald. And while many people have green eyes, Sanae's eyes were an unnaturally bright green, almost the same color as her hair. Though despite these seemingly inhuman attributes, she was still extremely attractive, and it seemed as if another guy would try chatting her up every other day or so. Some guys were unlucky enough to try this on a day where she was in too bad a mood to turn them down easily.

All in all, Sanae didn't particularly care what most people thought of her, but she certainly hated the attention they seemed to love giving her. She hastily plopped back down into her seat, hoping the rest of the class would take their eyes off of her and resume the lesson, but she finally caught a lucky break as the clock struck 2:30 just as she sat down.

"That's all the time for today," Mr. Aoki said. "By tomorrow, I expect the rest of you to be able to do what Miss Kochiya just showed us. Class dismissed."

Sanae slammed her textbook shut, slipped it into her bag, and walked out the door before anyone else had even managed to get out of their seat. As she rushed to her locker at the pace someone might walk if they were being followed through a dark alley at night, a voice came from the classroom door behind her.

"Whoa, Sanae, wait up!"

Sanae turned around and saw a short brown-haired girl hurrying to keep up with her. "Oh, Miyuki," Sanae said.

Miyuki Inoue. One of Sanae's classmates, her one true friend, and probably the only person in the school that was even more eccentric than Sanae herself. She was emotionally unpredictable, completely lacking in common sense, (though very intelligent otherwise), and her speech and behavior were crude at best, but her genuinely cheery and straightforward attitude won the admiration of nearly everyone she met.

Miyuki stopped for a second to catch her breath. "What's goin' on? I ain't ever seen you run away that fast before. Ya didn't even stop to say bye to me!"

"Sorry," Sanae apologized, "I'm just not feeling alright today. I had a late night, and didn't get much sleep."

"Well duh. You were on the verge of dozin' off for almost the entire day! And I know you weren't paying attention when Mr. Aoki called on you. So why were you up all night anyway?"

"I was trying to think of ways to attract people to the shrine. Trying to gather a little faith for Lady Kanako."

Sanae was referring to Kanako Yasaka, a powerful goddess that owned the shrine where Sanae lived. When Sanae was an infant, Kanako had found her abandoned on the Moriya Shrine's doorstep and took her in. Since then, Sanae had looked up to Kanako, doing whatever she could to help out at the shrine, while treating Kanako with more respect and admiration than humanly possible.

Miyuki scratched her head. "What, a lack of business or somethin'? That happens to everyone at one point or another…"

"There's more to it than that," Sanae spoke gravely. "People have been losing their faith in gods for a while now, but this is the worst it's ever been. Unless we gather some more faith, Lady Kanako can't perform any of her miracles… which, in turn, will cause people to lose even more faith in her."

"So without faith she can't perform miracles? That's it? Well that doesn't seem so bad…"

"If that were the entirety of the story, I wouldn't be so worried for her. Listen… if the amount of faith drops low enough…" Sanae lowered her voice, and she became visibly distressed. "…Without faith, she'll disappear. Cease to exist. Lady Suwako will as well."

"Whoa… that's heavy."

"So you see, it's more important that I find a way to bring people in. I can rest later; this is too urgent to postpone."

"Hmm…" Miyuki stood deep in thought for a moment. "Oh, I know! Why don't you find a place with a lot of people, and show off some of your own miracles? Then you could get a whole bunch of people to visit the shrine!"

"Miyuki, these are miracles, not parlor tricks! …Either way, that thought already crossed my mind. My miracles aren't impressive enough… even with small amounts of faith, Lady Kanako could whip up a massive hurricane or call down enough rain to flood the entirety of Japan. The most I can manage is a small gale."

"But that's gotta be worth somethin', right? Wouldn't it be worth the effort, even if it caused only a single person to regain their faith?"

"Hm… I suppose so, but-"

"Excellent!" Miyuki interrupted. "Meet me down in the shopping district at 7 PM. There's sure to be people all over the place down there! 'Kay, bye-bye!" Miyuki ran off before Sanae had a chance to react.

"H-hey, wait a second! Miyuki!" Sanae called out to her friend, but she was already long gone. "Well, I guess it's worth a shot…" Sanae sighed and walked towards the school's exit.

After nearly an hour of walking, Sanae found herself back at the Moriya Shrine. The shrine itself was large and sat right on the beach of Lake Suwa, a fitting place for a wind/rain goddess's shrine.

Waiting for her outside was a short blonde girl in an odd hat. "Hey, Sanae, you're home late."

Sanae approached the girl. "Sorry, Lady Suwako."

Suwako Moriya, a frog goddess with the ability to control curses and the "true" goddess of the Moriya Shrine. However, she had given up the shrine to Kanako thousands of years ago, and since then, she did little else but hang around the shrine chatting with Kanako. While she looked (and frequently acted) like a child, Suwako's power as a goddess was impressive, and she was actually quite mature and intelligent.

Suwako studied Sanae's face. "You look tired… why don't you dip your legs in the lake for a little bit? I'm sure that would make you feel better!"

"That sounds nice, but I don't have time for that… is Lady Kanako here?"

"No, she's been gone since this morning. I think she went into the city to try and attract people to the shrine."

Hearing that, Sanae dropped her bag just outside the shrine's door and began to walk back towards the city.

"Whoa!" Suwako called out. "Where are you going?"

Sanae turned her head towards Suwako. "To help Lady Kanako, of course."

Suwako hopped quickly towards Sanae. "Nope, uh-uh. You look like you're about to collapse from exhaustion, you can't go out like this!"

"But Lady Kanako needs my help-"

"Kanako isn't a child, she can handle this by herself."

"I know, but-"

"Look, I know you want to help her, but if you don't get some rest, you won't be ready when she really needs you. Go inside and take a nap. I'll wake you up when dinner is ready."

"…I suppose you're right. Miyuki wanted me to meet her in the shopping district tonight anyway, so I should sleep while I can."

"Sweet dreams."

Sanae walked briskly to her room, and collapsed into bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she was asleep.

Sanae walked around in a haze. Everything was pitch black, except for a gray fog that filled the area.

"Huh?" Sanae muttered. "Am I… dreaming?" She looked around once more. "I must be… but this feels too real to be a dream…"

A female voice suddenly echoed from far away. "Hey, is that her?"

A second female voice responded. "Oh, my… yes, and much sooner than I had expected."

Sanae looked around to try and find where the voices were coming from. "Hello? Who's there? Where are we?"

Seemingly ignoring Sanae's questions, the first voice spoke again. "So, what should we do?"

"It's not time yet. For now, let's return, and leave her to her rest."

"As you wish."

Determined to get answers, Sanae called out once more. "Hey! Wait! What's going on here?"

Sanae was quickly brought back to reality by the sound of someone opening her bedroom door. "Hey, Sanae," Suwako's voice called out, "time to eat."

Sanae sat up in her bed, drenched in sweat. "Oh… okay." Her voice sounded shaky.

"Huh? What's wrong? Did you have a bad dream or something?"

"Well… it wasn't bad… just… intense."

"Uh-huh. Anyway, you need to eat something to keep up your strength. C'mon, get up."

"Y-yes, I'll be right out." Sanae stretched her legs and shakily stood up from her bed. Before she left the room, she glanced back at her pillow. The memory of her dream was still vividly painted in her mind, far too real to have been a simple dream…


End file.
